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My rant of new cahes and legs to multi caches

Before I start my rant I want to make it perfectly clear that this is not directed at the Maine approver. The Maine approver is just following the guidelines set by GC.

I have discovered a rule set buy GC in 2005 (as I was told) has really come to annoy me in the past couple of days.

When placing caches they need to be 528 feet or .8 miles from the nearest cache. This I do not have a problem with.

When you are placing a cache out you can look on GC ahead of time to verify that there are no caches in the area and then you should know you are safe to go place one in the location you were planning on, WRONG. If there is a leg of a multi cache in the area where you want to place your cache that is less than 528 feet or .8 miles from within where you going to place your cache then it will get disapproved.

I can understand this with traditional caches but how are we the caches suppose to know where legs are to multi caches unless we have done all the multi caches around? Some multi caches have legs that or miles from each other and some donít. Most of the time multi caches are micros or close to being micros.

Here is the problem I ran into. I placed a cache and was told that there was a cache to close to the one I had placed. I looked and I saw that there was a multi (first stage) exactly 528 from where I had place it so I was disapproved because it need to be moved at least one foot further. I had no problem with this. This was my fault.

I moved the cash a couple hundred feet further just to be safe. I resubmitted the cache and was disapproved again. I was told that there was a cache within 422 feet of my placement and it was one of the legs to a multi stage micro. This was when I started to get irritated but I kept my cool.

I went out with all intentions of doing this multi stage micro today so that I would know where all the legs were. First you have to realize I am not good at doing micros hence I donít normally do them but in order to place a cache in my area I had to find all the stages of the mulit micro so that I would not keep getting jerked around by GC. I found the first stage and moved on to the second stage where I spent 45 minutes looking for it. I could not find it. I had to give up because it was starting to get dark.

This is where the problem lies. I could not find this leg of the multi cache and to top it off it is a micro. I really do not think that legs to a multi cache should be considered as part of a cache when placing other caches. How is a cacher supposed to know where the caches are prior to placing a new cache out if they cannot look on CG and see all cache locations. They should not be required to do multi caches and find all the legs to the multi cache before placing a new cache.

Here is an example. Jack places a mulit cache out and the first leg is on his front door step in Lewiston, ME. The second leg is placed in Litchfield at a boat launch. The third leg is in Brunswick at a boat launch. Now a person placing a new cache is required to know where the legs to these caches are before placing a new cache so that it will not get disapproved. This is a little asinine in my opinion. This would require me to do all the multi caches in Maine in order to know where legs are before I place a new cache. If a cacher named Fred goes to Litchfield to place a cache at the boat launch it will get disapproved even though he looked on GC and verified that there were not caches within miles of that location.

All you have to do without the approver giving you the coordinates is just ask the approver if there are any caches near coordinates that you propose to place yours in. Pretty simple I think.

You should not have to write to the approver and wait for a response. This is putting more work on the approver and give you a wait time until you hear back from them. It would be a lot easier if you could search GC yourself or exempt legs to multi caches. I think the point is getting missed here. Placing caches should be easy and user friendly. You should not be required to know the legs to all the multi caches in the state of Maine before placing a cache.

First of all, 528 feet is .1 miles, not .8 miles. I'm sure Rick just made an error there.

You are correct about a stage of a multi being a pain if you try to place a cache near one. But keeping the .1 mile rule for stages of caches keeps you from confusing two caches or stages of two caches.

For me, it goes one step further. My battleship cache has virtual stages - generally caches may be placed within .1 mile of virtual stages, but I have mine designated as physical stages. Discretion is basically left up to the approver, but generally labeling virtual stages as physical is allowed if the hider does not want caches being placed near the virtual stages. I have little doubt 95% of the populous disagrees with me, but I think placing caches near the stages of my multi takes away from my cache.

So, I am all for not allowing caches within .1 mile of multi stages. Heck, I'd be happy if the .1 mile rule was increased to 1 mile.

A bunch of us submitted a solution to gc.com several years ago, but it was never implemented. The idea - allow caches to be "pre-approved" - this way you could submit a cache without physically placing it. You would fill out the cache page and the coords of where the stages would be, so you would know ahead of time if the location you chose to hide a cache was not going to be allowed before placing the actual cache. Haffy's response was similar to this, but not as official if it was set up that way right at the cache submission page. A great alternative would be for the web site to be able to tell you if you placed a cache within .1 miles of another, but that could be abused and used to find the location of other caches.

I have no doubt there are hundreds of caches (probably even more likely with micros) which were placed and left there as trash because they never got approved.

You should not be required to know the legs to all the multi caches in the state of Maine before placing a cache.

Nobody is asking you to know all the multi caches and their legs. I think asking the approver if there are any legs near the coordinates where you intend to put your cache is the correct way of going about this. I think asking another cacher where the legs to the multi is, is just another way of cheating so to speak. You would then know where a certain leg is located and then if you decided to do the multi would have an advantage to doing that particular cache. JMHO

Just smile it won't crack your face

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suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best
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I understand what your saying Brdad and I agree with you. You Battleship cache is a good example of my point. As someone placing a new cache in the Bangor or Brewer are they are expected to know where all the stages are to you Battleship cache before they place a new cache. How are they suppose to know that unless they have done that multi cache. These types of caches are not for everyone and not everyone likes doing multi caches. How are we suppose to know where the legs are?

With Battleship, the coords are given on the cache page of all 25 stages. But I know that is a pain for anyone to check when hiding a new cache. Especially since I am too mean to include the waypoints in the GPX file.

With the system set up the way it is now, you have two options, set your cache up and see what happens, or send an approver the coords and ask as Haffy said.

I'm not sure as it's fair or easy. As far as being harder for the approver, I am not sure it is a lot more, it has to be checked at some time anyway.